"One day, on my way back from work, I tuned-in to what used to be my favorite station and started listening to Catholic Answers Live. Slowly, the hard shell that had been built around me started breaking apart every time I listened to your show. There have been several programs that have touched me very deeply, even to the point of tears."

This post is the first in a series about the most prevalent modern myths about the Crusades and how to refute them.

The Crusades are one of the most misunderstood topics in Church history. Movies and TV present as established fact an outdated anti-Catholic narrative about them that stays alive by sheer repetition. Not only do secular critics of the Church use this narrative to attack Catholicism (and religion in general), but many Catholics uwittingly accept it as true.

Readers always ask writers, "Where do you get your ideas?" And it is not an easy question to answer. Sometimes a thought association sparks an idea. Other times I might read an opinion piece that gets me thinking about a subject. Common questions apologists are asked might provide a springboard. When I can think of nothing else, I rummage through old Q&As I have published on other cyber platforms and re-work them into a new blog post.

Facebook is an intriguing social phenomenon for many reasons. One that has long fascinated me is Facebook Likes. For those of you who have resisted being sucked into Facebook, Likes are links to public pages on Facebook that are established by members based on their personal preferences. These links allow members to see in their personal newsfeed the updates from public pages that they have Liked.

August 28, 2013, marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, a civil-rights march that has become a legendary moment in the fight for civil rights in the United States. (Nota bene: Interestingly enough, marches on Washington for civil rights take place every January, and annually...

Many years ago, when I was in the process of becoming Catholic, I read Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Catholic Answers president and founder, Karl Keating. It was in that book that I first came across a popular quote by Bishop Fulton Sheen that is often repeated today by Catholics discussing the phenomenon of anti-Catholic bigotry: